Social

Anarchist Theory

This short text originally appeared in 2001 in the anarchist publication “Killing King Abacus.” It explores the topic of alienation in contemporary society and its ever increasing pervasiveness. Arguing that “the system” wants people to be atomized and detached from each other and that atomization will continue as long as society exists, the author argues that anarchists can resist alienation by “…creating projects for ourselves which promote real interactions outside of the roles and relationships that social reproduction demands.” In doing this, anarchists will find new affinities and new prospects for destroying the existing order.

This zine is an essay by Research & Destroy that attempts to analyze gentrification, rent, economics, and the development of the “new city.” It looks at urban development over the past forty years, trends in suburbanization, urbanization, and gentrification. It’s a very good analysis that is helpful in offering new ways of understanding what is happening across the world.

Sub-titled “Towards An Anarchist Approach To Gentrification,” this zine is a thorough examination of the topic of gentrification. It provides an overview of academic writing and theorizing on the topic, summarizing considerable research in an easy-to-understand manner. It does a very good job defining gentrification, looking at the economics behind it, and the realities of gentrification. The final section of the zine explores various anarchist anti-gentrification efforts, offering helpful history and insight while even offering some ideas for future directions.

While dated, “Technological Addiction” by Chellis Glendinning offers a good starting point for considering the psychological damage wrought by technology and technological addition. Glendinning argues that technology has played a critical role in separating humans from the Earth and that the ensuing trauma has largely blinded us to its effects. This is essential reading!

A speech by Russell Means in which he provides a comprehensive critique of the Eurpoean colonial mindset and how it differs from indigenous ways of thinking. Means is particularly hostile towards revolutionary Marxism, explaining how Marxism and other ideologies of “the Left” still embody pro-progress views that justify the exploitation of the natural world.

Sub-titled “An Anarchists’ Critique of Leninism,” this zine does what it sets out to do—presents a critique of the political theory of Leninism. It provides a good overview of why anarchists are against Leninists and the failings of Leninism as a political theory. It covers both historical aspects and contemporary aspects of Leninism. Compared to other texts on the topic it doesn’t dwell on history, but rather seeks to show how Leninism both in its historical and contemporary manifestations is an authoritarian and reformist theory that fails to challenge the state and capitalism.

This zine collects two excellent essays by Lawrence Jarach: “Leftism 101” from Back to Basics: The Problem of the Left put out by the Green Anarchy collective and “Anarchists, Don’t let the Left(overs) Ruin your Appetite” from Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #48.

The first essay looks at the origins of Leftist thought and anarchism’s relationship to it. The second essay provides a brief overview of anarchists’ historical relationship with “the Left,” concluding that there is no point in engaging with it.

Subtitled “A Primer on Civilization, Domestication, and Anarchy,” Uncivilized is a good introduction to the anarchist critique of civilization. It covers the major themes: history, agriculture, domestication, the critique of technology, the horror of industrialism, etc. It makes a convincing case that the goal of the anarchist project should be nothing less than the complete destruction of civilization

This zine contains writings that explore the concept of “solidarity.” “Solidarity” is a term that is often tossed around in anarchist circles, often without regard for what it actually means. Revolutionary Solidarity explores the question of what solidarity means in practice and how solidarity can become revolutionary. For the authors, the answer lies in making solidarity synonymous with action.

The Economy is Suffering, Let It Die! explores the abstractions known as “economy” and “society.” These concepts are used to separate us from life and the natural world, focusing our thought on abstractions rather than what is real. Includes essays by David Watson and John Zerzan.

In From Politics to Life: Ridding Anarchy of the Leftist Millstone, Wolfi Landstreicher argues against the leftist conception of politics and in favor of an anarchy that is separated from “the left.” In the essay, Landstreicher criticizes the left’s reliance on mass, democracy, and progress—among others. In its place, they call for a rejection of these forms and the pursuit of an anarchy that focuses on insurrection.

Deserting the Digital Utopia is an essay by Crimethinc that explores how the digital (computers, social networks, etc) is shaping our lives. There is a lot covered in this short essay, but topics covered include social media, the enclosure of the commons, domination, hierarchy, digital utopianism, and more. This is a very well written critique of the current era.

This zine is a short introduction to the anarchist principles of direct action, voluntary cooperation, and mutual aid. It differentiates anarchism from the political philosophies of “the left” and argues for the separation of anarchist strategies and thought from “the left.”

The original essay was written by Lawrence Jarach and titled “Instead of a Meeting: By Someone Too Irritated to Sit Through Another One”

In 2001, the United States launched the ‘war on terrorism’ in purported response to the September 11th attacks. With hasty process, the New Zealand government quickly signed up. But what is this war really about? The agenda of the ‘war on terrorism’ is very different to the propaganda we are being sold by politicians and the mass media. It is an agenda of domination and control over our lives and the extension of state and corporate power.

Against Freedom, written by Valerie Morse, details the agenda against freedom, from the legislative changes since 9/11 to the suppression of dissent and the media manipulation of public understanding, in order to provide an alternative view of what is happening and what can be done to stop the war.

Emily Bailey writes from a Maori-Pakeha perspective: “So why reject the Treaty now? Because for many Maori there never was an agreement to give up sovereignty over ourselves. There was never an agreement to sell our lands against our will. There was never an agreement to pay council rates or otherwise forfeit our lands. And there was never an agreement to give up our tohunga, our reo, our carved meeting houses or our right to rebel against those who raped, beat, murdered and stole from us if we didn’t.”

An argument for the abolition of the producer- and consumer-based society, where all of life is devoted to the production and consumption of commodities. Attacking state socialism as much as liberal capitalism, Black argues that the only way for humans to be free is to reclaim their time from jobs and employment, instead turning necessary subsistence tasks into free play done voluntarily.

The essay argues that “no-one should ever work”, because work—defined as compulsory productive activity enforced by economic or political means—is the source of most of the misery in the world.

If the Green Capitalist response to climate change will only add more fuel to the fire, and if government at a global scale is incapable of solving the problem…how would anarchists suggest we reorganize society in order to decrease the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and to survive an already changed world?

At their very simplest, anarchist beliefs turn on to two elementary assumptions. The first is that human beings are, under ordinary circumstances, about as reasonable and decent as they are allowed to be, and can organize themselves and their communities without needing to be told how. The second is that power corrupts. Most of all, anarchism is just a matter of having the courage to take the simple principles of common decency that we all live by, and to follow them through to their logical conclusions. Odd though this may seem, in most important ways you are probably already an anarchist—you just don’t realize it.

If we carry the importance of empowerment to its fullest logical extent in terms of health care and public health policy—that is, seeing the need to build real conditions for self-management, attacking the roots of inequalities instead of just minimizing their effects, addressing market forces and norms of competition that have invaded every facet of social life, and realizing that these conditions are systemically perpetuated through the institutions we create but not intrinsic to the societal roles these institutions need to fulfill—we can pragmatically and rationally consider more utopist visions of how health care institutions (and institutions throughout society) can be restructured.

Hopelessness isn’t natural. It needs to be produced. To understand this situation, we have to realize that the last 30 years have seen the construction of a vast bureaucratic apparatus that creates and maintains hopelessness. At the root of this machine is global leaders’ obsession with ensuring that social movements do not appear to grow or flourish, that those who challenge existing power arrangements are never perceived to win. Maintaining this illusion requires armies, prisons, police and private security firms to create a pervasive climate of fear, jingoistic conformity and despair. All these guns, surveillance cameras and propaganda engines are extraordinarily expensive and produce nothing—they’re economic deadweights that are dragging the entire capitalist system down.

In the Society of the Spectacle we live in a world of carefully constructed illusions—about ourselves, each other, about power, authority, justice and daily life. These illusions are both constructed and reflected by education, advertising, propaganda, television, newspapers, speeches, elections, politics, religion, business transactions and the courts. They are perpetuated by us from the moment we accept this as a valid view of the world. We don’t have to agree with every detail—in fact we are positively encouraged to argue and take sides over a host of prefabricated trifles—we simply have to accept this view of the world; to view life from the perspective of Power.

Anarchists argue that anarchy is not against “human nature” for two main reasons. Firstly, what is considered as being “human nature” is shaped by the society we live in and the relationships we create. This means a hierarchical society will encourage certain personality traits to dominate while an anarchist one would encourage others. As such, anarchists “do not so much rely on the fact that human nature will change as they do upon the theory that the same nature will act differently under different circumstances.” Secondly, change “seems to be one of the fundamental laws of existence” so “who can say that man [sic!] has reached the limits of his possibilities.”

Chances are, first and foremost, that what you’ve been told in regards to anarchism is a complete farce and is quite possibly its complete opposite.

I’ll go out on a limb and assume you’ve heard something along the lines of: “anarchist = bomb-throwing terrorist” or “anarchist society = society just the way it is minus the police.” This couldn’t be further from the truth.

This pamphlet is one author’s articulation of anarchism, what the social theory rejects, and its foreseeable ethical alternatives.

a friend once said: no revolution is going to be generated out of systemic or structural laws.

we are on our own, and what we do we have to do for ourselves. we are the denizens of a strange epoch, the ‘given’ in a surreal situation.

while knowledge of space and time has been democratized, the modes of inhabiting them (the modes of being) are controlled more intensely than ever before. while sharing of information is ubiquitous, understanding and love appear empty at best – at read more »

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This introduction is, so to speak, an instrument that intends to make clear, nothing more nothing less, that this is a non-scientifically politically partial and contradictory study, endowed with a very interesting purpose, that is to rub in the face of who feels its face being rubbed, that there are possibilities to not conform with the relational, philosophical, political, cultural, esthetical, corporal, mental and orgasmal misery and decadence that lives human civilis, with its sick relations, colonizers and colonized, relations full of games that are typical from the last religious traditions that brutally assholized the so said thinking beings.

I looked through your magazine and I was repelled by the title, Semiotext(e). It’s so dry, you just want to throw it in the trash, which I did. Listen: Hatred of Capitalism would be a much better title. It’s stunning. The world is starving for thoughts. If you can think of something, the language will fall into place, but the thought is what’s going to do it.” Jack Smith

Introduction: The History of Semiotext(e)

Chris Kraus and Sylvere Lotringer

Part 1: Sylvere’s First Dream

(June 12, ’01–Los Angeles California–7:30 p.m.)

Chris Kraus: Could you tell me about the dream you had last night?

Sylvere Lotringer: What was the dream?

C: The dream about not having sex. Because, you see, I was disappointed … I moved the bed around here in the room so that everything could be different.

S: But we were having sex. We were just, we didn’t go beyond the crepuscular.

C: Crepuscular Dawn. That’s the title I thought up for the book you’re doing with Paul Virilio. It’s very trans … like a tequila sunrise, pineapple juice getting mixed up with grenadine. But I think the dream was about being middle aged.

S: Let me describe my dream. I never dream, but for the last two nights I remember my dreams. In both dreams, there is a communal situation a big room like a loft or an office, with people coming and going. Nothing is private. And in the first dream I was trying to make out with someone. I just remember the white sheets pushed aside, the mattress on the floor. People were passing and I was kind of annoyed but somehow having sex didn’t seem so important. Like in Kafka, The Country Doctor, I was looking between people passing by.